In What Ward is Your Chicago Real Estate?

January 25, 2012

The Chicago City Council last week adopted a new map of the city’s 50 wards, which might have just changed where your Chicago real estate lives.

The redistricting came about after the 2010 Census showed a big change in the city’s population and demographics, including a major drop in the African-American population and a surge in the Hispanic population. Federal law requires race to be a factor.

The redesign had its opponents, including alderman who will lose their jobs to the redrawn boundaries and others who felt they had insufficient time to review the map, which was still being finalized less than two hours before the vote.

In the end, the Council voted 41-8 in favor, which was a strong enough majority to avoid the issue going to a referendum vote at the polls on March 20. Several of the alderman, however, said the issue could still end up in court.

Some of the major changes:

*In response to the Hispanic population increasing 25,000 in the last census, the Latino Caucus gained four wards in the redesign, increasing from nine to 13 wards with Hispanic majority.

*Despite losing 181,000 African-American residents over the past 10 years, the Black Caucus dropped only two wards, decreasing from 20 to 18 majority.

*The 2nd Ward was most affected by the redesign, moving from the Near South Side to the North Side.

The new boundaries will take place in 2015 after the next city election.

Ready to find out where your Chicago real estate lives? Click here for the map.

For more information on the new boundaries, including Chicago demographics and pictures of the newly drawn map, visit chicityclerk.com.